Two on the Run (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Watson, Margaret

  “Did he…did he kill her?”

  “No. The doc said she had a heart attack. I think she just got tired of living.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael.” Eleanor gripped his hand and held on tightly.

  “It was a long time ago.” But he shifted his hand so their fingers entwined. “After she was gone, my father changed. He got even meaner.” Michael’s mouth hardened. “Pretty soon I figured out that the best way to deal with him was to avoid him and his fists. So I made sure I wasn’t around when he got home from work.”

  “Who took care of you?” she whispered.

  “I took care of myself.” And a piss-poor job of it he’d done, he thought bitterly.

  “A twelve-year-old child can’t take care of himself.”

  The horror in her voice made his heart twist in his chest. “I managed just fine.”

  “Until?”

  “How do you know there’s an ‘until’?”

  He heard her scoot forward from behind the desk. She fumbled in the darkness until she found his face and cupped it with her hands. “You’re a good man, Michael. Someone had to help you turn out that way.”

  “It was Charles,” he said gruffly after a moment. He should have been scared to death that Ellie knew his secrets. But he knew she would never betray him, never try to use her knowledge against him. “He was the police chief of Midland. He picked me up one day while I was trying to break into a car.” His mouth twisted. “There was a bunch of change in the ashtray, and I guess I was hungry.”

  “And then what?” Her voice was infinitely gentle.

  “He hauled me into the station, and I was sure he was going to arrest me. But when he found out who I was, he let loose with a string of words I hadn’t heard from anyone but my father. I thought he was swearing at me, and I tried to run. But he caught me before I could get out of the building.”

  The memories came bursting through the door Michael had closed on them. But they weren’t as painful as he’d expected. “When he dragged me back into the interview room, he told me he wasn’t mad at me. Then he took me to his house and turned me over to Betty. She made me take a bath, and gave me a decent meal. And I never really left after that.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  Even though he knew she couldn’t see his eyes, he looked away. He was afraid she’d see the fire of his hatred and his shame even in the dark. “Internal Affairs had been investigating him for a while before Charles caught me. They suspected he was on the take, and of course Charles knew about the investigation. He never told me exactly what happened, but my father confessed to extortion and shakedowns, and went to prison. He died in a fight there five years later.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, leaning closer. “Being stuck in a closet seems like nothing compared to what you went through.”

  “You can’t change your past. You can only change your future. I swore that I would never be like my father.” He felt stripped naked, exposed to the world.

  “No wonder you’re so determined to stop the corruption in Midland, even if you have to do it alone.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. I’m a real Lone Ranger.”

  “I’m serious,” she said, her voice passionate. “You’re risking your life to do what’s right. I don’t know anyone else who would go this far.”

  “There are plenty of cops who do it every day.”

  “Then how come none of them are helping you?”

  “You don’t pull your punches, do you, Ellie?”

  “I’m just pointing out the facts,” she said, her voice prim again.

  He reached out and pulled her close, pressing one last kiss to her lips. When her mouth softened he let her go and moved away. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

  “Get back in there and don’t come out until I come for you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I don’t care what you think might be happening.” He pressed something into her palm. “Take my phone. And if something goes wrong, call Charles.”

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong,” she murmured, squeezing his hand once more before she let him go.

  “I hope to God you’re right,” he muttered under his breath as he moved away.

  Sidling up to the window in the office, he looked down at the deserted warehouse below. No one had come into the building yet. So far, so good.

  A slice of weak daylight seeped into the building and he glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes before Givens was supposed to be here. The only thing left to do was wait.

  ELLIE STRAINED TO SEE Michael across the dark office, but the only thing she noticed was a darker shadow near the window. If she held her breath she could hear the soft whisper of his breathing on the other side of the room. The faint sound comforted her. She wasn’t alone. Michael was with her.

  Knowing he was in the room with her made it easier to fend off the monsters that lurked in the darkness. They hovered on the fringes of her consciousness, but she held a picture of Michael in her mind and dared them to come closer.

  She hoped the FBI agent was on time because she wasn’t sure how long her bravado would last.

  She heard a tiny scrabbling sound and her heart leaped in her throat. She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath when she realized it was Michael, positioning himself on the other side of the room.

  This fear of the darkness was inconvenient and silly, and she’d have to deal with it, she told herself firmly. Right now she was useless to Michael. If something went wrong she wouldn’t be able to help him.

  And he might need her help. Closing her eyes so she wouldn’t actually see the darkness, she took deep breaths until her heart rate leveled. The thought of helping Michael steadied her. His mission was far more important than her dreary, mundane phobia.

  “Quiet,” he whispered in the darkness, his voice urgent and intense.

  She curled into an even tighter ball and concentrated on listening. The door on the ground floor squealed and a shaft of light stabbed the darkness.

  She waited for what seemed like an eternity, her heart hammering in her chest. Then Michael said, “It’s Givens. And it looks like he’s alone.”

  But he didn’t move. Minutes stretched out unbearably as she waited for Michael to make a move. Finally he scooted over to her. She could just make out his face in the lifting darkness.

  “Givens is alone and there’s no sign he’s been followed. He’s getting nervous, so I’d better go down.” He hesitated for a moment, then shoved the backpack into her arms. “Hold on to this for me.”

  “Aren’t you giving it to him?”

  “I want to make sure everything is on the level.” He gave her a grim look. “Something doesn’t smell right.”

  “Then don’t go down there,” she said, her voice urgent. She grabbed his arm. It was a steel bar beneath the fabric of his shirt. “Stay here until he leaves. We’ll think of another plan.”

  He shook his head. “Too risky. The longer we wait, the closer the Midland cops will get. I don’t have a choice. But I’m not handing over the information until I’m sure it’s safe.”

  She stared at his face, only an outline in the darkness. But even so she could read his resolve. She wasn’t going to stop him from going down those stairs. “You’re nothing like your father,” she said quietly. “You’re the most honorable man I know, Michael Reilly.”

  He shook his head. “I’m just a cop, doing my job,” he said. “That’s all.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her, a brief meeting of their lips. Then he settled back on his heels. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ellie.” His voice was barely a whisper. “You don’t know how much it means to me.”

  He brushed a finger over her cheek and down her neck. “Stay here no matter what happens. Don’t come out until I get you. If you have to call Charles, wait for him here. He’ll come and get you.”

  “Be careful, Michael.” The words I love you hovered on her lips, but she hesitated and then it was too late. He was gone, v
anishing into the darkness like a wraith, silent and invisible.

  Apparently, in spite of her vow to the contrary, she still didn’t have the guts to reach for what she wanted. She should have told Michael she loved him before he went down to face the FBI agent. But she’d lost her courage, and now she might not have another chance. Clearly Michael had been worried about something.

  Alone in the darkness, feeling completely isolated, she strained to listen. She didn’t hear a sound. Time stretched out unbearably as the darkness pressed in on her, heavy and smothering. Surely Michael had reached the FBI agent by now.

  Suddenly bright lights cut into the blackness and the sound of feet pounding on the concrete floor echoed in the tiny room. Angry voices spoke in harsh tones and the sound of a fist hitting flesh was shockingly loud.

  Fear paralyzed Ellie, but her fear for Michael quickly overcame her reluctance to move. She scrambled out of her secure hiding place and crawled over to the window that looked down on the space below.

  Her stomach dropped and she slapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Michael and another man, their arms raised in surrender, stood in the center of a circle of armed men. And standing near the door, a gun at her back, her eyes wide and terrified, stood a young woman holding a small baby.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ELLIE SHOVED HER FIST into her mouth to muffle her cry of horror. Something had gone terribly wrong. Somehow the Midland cops had found out where they were. She recognized the officer who had stopped her car in Midland, and the three cops she and Michael had followed from the federal building yesterday. Another looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  But all of them had an identical look on their face—cold, implacable hatred. And it was all directed at Michael.

  “Where’s your ‘evidence,’ Reilly?” the cop who had stopped their car growled.

  Michael raised one eyebrow. “Screw you, Ruiz.”

  The cop who’d spoken punched him in the face. But Michael merely wiped away the blood that welled from his lip and kept his steady, contemptuous gaze on the officer’s face.

  “Search the place,” Ruiz said, turning to look at the other cops.

  Michael gave a short, sharp laugh. “You think I would bring it here? I’m not that stupid.”

  “He seemed to think you would.” Another cop nodded at the man standing next to Michael.

  “He doesn’t know squat. I’ve never met him before. How would he know what I’d do?” Michael’s gaze flickered over the other man, whom Ellie assumed was Givens, the FBI agent, then dismissed him.

  The cops shuffled their feet and looked at each other, clearly uneasy.

  “Let Gloria and her kid go and we might be able to come to an agreement,” Michael said after a moment.

  The officer holding the gun on Gloria pushed her closer to the ring of men. “Now why would we want to let her go? She’s our ace in the hole,” another man said. “We didn’t drag her all the way from Midland just so we could let her walk away. We thought we might need some bargaining chips with you, Reilly.”

  “I don’t bargain with the lives of women and children. I won’t even talk to you until I see Gloria walk out the door.”

  The man who seemed to be in charge gave Michael a long look, then nodded. “All right.” He walked over to Gloria and plucked the baby from her arms. “Get out of here,” he said to her. “But just to make sure you behave yourself, we’ll hold on to Rueben, Jr.”

  “No!” Gloria screamed, reaching for her baby. The police officer held the child with one arm and shoved at her with the other. She stumbled backward, then fell heavily to the floor. The baby started wailing.

  Michael leaped toward the man holding the child, but Ruiz punched him in the face again. Another man grabbed his arms from behind and wrestled him to the floor. The other officers tightened their grips on their guns and looked from Gloria, sobbing and scrambling to get to her son, to the screaming baby. The uncertainty, alarm and panic on their faces was obvious, even from Ellie’s vantage point above them.

  Clearly if something didn’t happen soon, there would be a tragedy.

  Without thinking, Ellie scurried toward the door, stopping only to shove the backpack into an ancient file cabinet. She ran down the stairs, halting a few steps from the bottom.

  “Stop,” she yelled. “I know where the information is. Give Gloria back her baby.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Ruiz, the cop who seemed to be in charge, pointed his gun toward her and scowled.

  “She must be the broad that Reilly kidnapped,” another of the men said.

  “She doesn’t look anything like that librarian,” Ruiz said, frowning as he studied her face. His expression hardened. “But who the hell cares who she is? Give me the information or I’ll blow out his brains.” He pointed the gun at Michael’s head and held it steady.

  Oh, God, what had she done? She’d made the situation far worse. “Michael already told you the in formation isn’t here,” she said, trembling. She straightened, determined not to show fear. “But I know where he left it. If you let us all go, I’ll tell you.”

  “You got it backward,” the man in charge said, releasing the safety on his gun. “Tell us where it is or we’ll splatter his brains on the wall.”

  Without warning, Michael rolled into one of the officer’s legs, taking him down. When the other officers jumped in to help, Michael pulled a couple of them down on top of the pile.

  “Run, Ellie,” he yelled. “Get out of here!”

  She froze for a moment as she watched the deadly struggle in front of her. The officer who held the baby had circled the child’s body with one arm, and with the other was trying to pull one of the officers off the pile.

  Without thinking, she raced forward and plucked the boy from him. Before she could take a breath, Gloria snatched the child away from her.

  “Rueben,” she sobbed, pressing kisses onto his head. “Oh, Rueben.”

  “Come on.” Ellie grabbed Gloria’s arm. “We have to get you out of here.”

  But Gloria stumbled over one of the combatants on the floor and by the time she’d regained her balance, an officer had her by the arm again. Another cop grabbed Ellie roughly around the wrist and yanked her toward him.

  Incensed, she kicked his knee as hard as she could. When the officer yelped and let her go, she kicked him again, in the other knee.

  “Run, Ellie,” she heard Michael yell. “Get out of here.”

  But there were two officers standing in front of the door. Without hesitating she ran the other way, back up the stairs and into the darkness. One of the officers lunged for her, but he tripped over Gloria and fell heavily to the floor, swearing viciously.

  “Let her go,” she heard another one say. “She won’t get far. We’ve got men watching every exit. Even if she manages to find a door, she won’t be going anywhere.”

  Ellie raced up the stairs and ran blindly across the floor, weaving her way among the huge boxes and piles of pallets that littered the floor. When she’d run as far as she could she squeezed between two boxes and wriggled into the corner.

  Her heart hammering in her chest, her breath coming in ragged gasps, she listened to the noise below. She braced herself for the explosion of a gun, but it never came.

  Instead she heard the men talking and arguing, and eventually some climbed up the stairs. The glow of their flashlights preceded them, and she shrank farther back into her patch of darkness.

  But they didn’t stop on her floor. Instead they kept going, climbing the stairs to the next floor, then to the floor above that.

  She tried to picture the building in her mind. She wasn’t sure, but thought there were at least four stories. Maybe five. They could be anywhere above her, she realized with despair.

  And now the building was dark again. Her heart thundered in her chest with the rhythm of panic and her breath came in short, wrenching gasps. Hysteria hovered at the edge of her consciousness.

  The growin
g daylight barely penetrated the layers of grime and dirt on the windows, but she fastened her gaze to the thin ribbon of light and kept it there while she tried to slow her ragged breathing. As long as she was looking at the weak beam, she could pretend she wasn’t trapped in the dark.

  Her fingers skimmed over the cell phone she’d shoved into her pocket. Her hand trembled with the need to push the buttons and summon help. But she didn’t dare use it. One of the Midland officers could be inches away, just waiting for her to make a mistake. One sound would be all it took to betray her location.

  Keeping her eyes fixed on the slowly enlarging band of light that danced on the wall, she concentrated on steadying her breathing. When she could finally hear over the pounding of her heart, she sucked in a gulp of air, then held her breath.

  The murmur of men’s voices drifted down from far above. Suddenly one voice raised in anger, then she heard a hard thump on the floor.

  Panic fluttered through her again, but this time it wasn’t because of the dark. Was Michael all right? Had they hurt him? Or worse?

  No, she told herself firmly. Michael was all right. He was smart enough and clever enough to survive.

  But he needed some help. And there was no one but her to do it.

  She pushed away the tiny voice that told her to run, to get away at any cost. Even Michael had told her to get away.

  But she wasn’t going to leave him at the mercy of the men who’d tried to kill him, she vowed fiercely. No one else knew where he was. There would be no cavalry rushing to the rescue. It was up to her to save Michael and the others.

  But first she had to move out of her cramped hiding place between the boxes and move farther into the blackness.

  For a moment her courage failed her. She buried her head in her hands and tried to block out the dark. But as she sat there silently, seconds and minutes ticked inexorably away in her head. Anything could be happening to Michael.